While pointing out that there were several question marks over the Gujarat model of development, the PM, addressing a rally here, blamed BJP for bringing down the standard of political discourse and vitiating atmosphere with its "politics of negativism and separatism" and asked people to "think seriously" what the party which believes in "demeaning others" will do to the country.

The PM blamed Modi —the BJP's PM candidate has been relentlessly targeting the Congress—for starting it all. He said, "In the last few months, we are seeing a lot of negative politics and the standard of political debate has gone down."

"BJP is practising politics of negativism and separatism. With this, it can never hope to usher in any development. I think there is a need for the BJP to change its ideology," he said. As for the development model of Gujarat that Modi has been talking of at his elections rallies, Singh said there were "several question marks" over the Gujarat model of development. "The BJP leader from Gujarat is always talking about the Gujarat model of development. But it is well known that several question marks were raised over the Gujarat model of development. The model need not work for the whole country. India is a very vast country where only one model of development could not work for all the regions."

Taking potshots at Modi, he said the Gujarat leader had made "several goof-ups in matters relating to history". "This showed what kind of a man he is," Singh said.

"In his zeal to malign others, a big BJP leader often resorts to falsehoods. He frequently distorts historical facts. Once in his enthusiasm to attack Congress, he misrepresented facts about a leader who is respected a lot in BJP," he said. In its enthusiasm, BJP was only interested in levelling personal attacks on leaders from rival parties," he said.